Daily Digest 2/29 - The Eurozone Is Doomed, Inside The GOP Implosion

Economy

“It will lead to not only an economic but [also] a political crisis,” he says. “Monetary union has created a conflict between a centralised elite on the one hand, and the forces of democracy at the national level on the other. This is extraordinarily dangerous.”

If any of those S&P 500 triggers occur, the benchmark index will decline at least 8.2 percent from Monday’s close to 1,786, a level last seen in February 2014, according to DeMark. Should the market top correspond with what he referred to as “bad news,” the S&P 500 could see deeper selling down to 1,736, an 11 percent decline. DeMark sees the ongoing market rally as temporary relief as investors exit short positions.

The Groundwork, according to Democratic campaign operatives and technologists, is part of efforts by Schmidt—the executive chairman of Google parent-company Alphabet—to ensure that Clinton has the engineering talent needed to win the election. And it is one of a series of quiet investments by Schmidt that recognize how modern political campaigns are run, with data analytics and digital outreach as vital ingredients that allow candidates to find, court, and turn out critical voter blocs.

There is a huge laundry list of leading economic indicators I could point you to for visualizing the sick economy, but perhaps the king of all leading indicators is the price of oil. It has absolutely cratered in the past year and a half. It’s gone from well over $100 per barrel to now hovering around $30 and flirting with the idea of going lower, a 70%+ decline. Now why would oil drop in price so dramatically? Is it because the Saudi’s are trying to drive the American shale industry out of business? No, it’s much simpler than that. People simply don’t need as much oil because they aren’t producing enough goods because there aren’t enough people willing to buy those goods. When demand dries up, sellers are forced to lower prices to entice buyers to keep buying.

Today, the equivalent of those bankers are shareholders. They expect not just interest, but tremendous returns on their initial investments. They witnessed the success of Facebook and Google and want those sorts of returns, too. So they put money into a company like Twitter, and then expect to earn back 100 or 1,000 times on their original investment. The fact that Twitter makes 500 million dollars a quarter is considered an abject failure by the investors. And so Twitter must look for some way to “pivot”—that is, change from a super successful company that lets people send 140-character messages, into something else.

Acting as a pseudo “insurance salesman,” we collect instant premiums from investors that are insuring portfolio positions, by selling them out-of-the-money put options, or the right to sell us a stock at a price (or strike) much lower than the stock’s current valuation. Investors use put options to protect open positions in their portfolio. When they purchase put options, they are essentially limiting their losses in the event of a correction or crash in the stock — a hazard in the stock market.

Scenario Three – deflation and hyperinflation: Deflationary forces temporarily crash the financial system (signs are visible in 2016-Q1), and eventually central bankers and governments inflate currencies, possibly to hyperinflationary levels in their heavy-handed reaction. In this scenario silver prices will go into the stratosphere – perhaps $150, or $1,500, or $15,000 per ounce. The ultimate silver price in a hyperinflationary scenario is unpredictable since hyperinflationary forces feed upon themselves and destroy purchasing power unpredictably. Gold reached nearly 100 trillion Weimar Marks per ounce in 1923. Gold, if currently priced in 1945 (pre-devaluation) Argentina pesos would be over 10,000 trillion 1945 pesos. Hyperinflation is an ugly, destructive, and unpredictable process.

This crystallized for me after the last GOP debate when Trump told Chris Cuomo in a post-debate interview that the IRS might be coming after him because he's a "strong Christian." Set aside for the moment how this unchurched libertine was able to rebrand himself as a "strong Christian." What about the preposterous claim that he is being persecuted by the IRS because he is a devout member of the country's dominant religion? Republicans simply aren't in any position to criticize this ludicrous claim because they have spent years telling their voters that this sort of thing happens all the time - to Christians, conservatives, everyone the liberals at the IRS hate. And this, of course, is just one example of hate and nonsense debt coming due. Shift gears now and they're "RINOs."

Gold & Silver

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This includes financial and corporate debt, as well as sovereign debt, mainly in the U.A.E., Bahrain and Qatar, it said. HSBC is confident that the funding gaps will be covered and expects a "raft" of foreign sovereign bond issuance to fund budget ...

China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, has cut further the reserve requirement ratio, the amount of cash the country's banks have to hold, in an attempt to calm investor jitters over the world's second largest economy. The PBOC cut the ratio ...

The nation's central bank has cut interest rates deep below zero and unleashed a bond purchase program to provide further stimulus as it struggles to meet its 2 percent inflation target. Efforts to accommodate a record-wave of immigrants from war torn ...

The Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and several smaller European authorities have ventured into the once-uncharted territory of negative interest rates. But what are negative rates, and how do they come about? Here are some questions and ...

The eight public universities in the state that Moody's rates, which have a combined $3.2 billion of debt, all have negative outlooks, indicating their rankings may be cut. On Feb. 24, the company downgraded Eastern Illinois University, Northern ...

He said some can afford stimulus while others where debt is high have to move faster on structural economic reforms. Companies and investors were looking to the ... It said another downgrade is likely in April. The G-20 statement acknowledged that ...

I find that as the years go by, the rhetoric of conservatism and liberalism mean less and less to the life we live. Rhetoric aside, no candidate or party speaks for the rural farms or communities. Left or right the language is of the city: eternal growth and happy days (past, present, or future).

As a farmer I know a couple of truths. First, that the manure I sling has real value. Second, that growth is a part of a larger cycle and is never eternally sustained; that the wheel turns and winter always follows spring, summer, and fall.

Exactly Tall! Sometimes a moron (like Peter Sellers' character is this movie Being There) is the only one who seems to grasp the most elementary truths. (If you haven't seen the whole movie, I strongly recommend it as we teeter here on the edge of the abyss.)

Revolution is all around you, The seeds have been sown. What is growing is a movement that has got the Establishment running scarred. And they should be. Here's what the MSM is not telling you.

Iowa was a virtual tie, and it would have went to Bernie except for 6 coin tosses that went Clinton's way. Go figure. Wow, 6 for 6 on coin tosses. Anyone want to bet on those odds happening again? Ha ha.

Sanders won every demographic in NH, most notably the youth vote (1st and 2nd timers), except for the older, affluent voter. After NV Sanders was behind by only one delegate in the delegate count. In SC he was trounced. Yet he won segments of that electorate too, again younger voters.

In February Sanders has raised almost $43,000,000 as of this writing, from over 1.4 million real persons. That's simply incredible. But will the MSM be reporting that?

Congressperson Alan Grayson, who is running for Marco Rubio's Senate seat and is a Super-delagate held a vote on whom he should support. He appealed to Democrats across the nation to tell him for whom he should vote, as a Super-delegate at the Democratic National Convention. The response has was absolutely overwhelming. Almost 400,000 Democrats voted at GraysonPrimary.com. More than the number who voted in the South Carolina primary. More than the number who voted in the New Hampshire primary and the Nevada caucus combined. The results: Sanders 86%, Clinton 14%. More than just a landslide. An earthquake.

When other candidates from previous elections challenged the establishment's preferred candidate the amount of money that they raised was always a talking point as to why they weren't viable candidates because they didn't have the money. So Sanders has proved that he can raise enormous amounts of money from just ordinary folks, millions of us. And the 400,000 that voted on Grayson's web-site, who are they? Sure they are from all over the nation but that tells you something too that MSM won't be telling you.

So, today is Super Tuesday. Eleven states and a territory will be voting today when most of you will be reading this. If you are voting today or in the days and weeks to come, be bold, be brave, be real...VOTE FOR BERNIE!